Photography 101: Framing

Good morning!  Paul just left to take Sophia to preschool and I have designated the next few hours to getting mucho caught up on work.  To start off the day however, I would like to share another compositional tool that can help dramatically improve the look of your photos.  It’s called framing and is pretty simple but takes some practice.  The goal is to “frame” your subject.  It can be with something that is in the background or foreground and you can get pretty creative.  Usually, you need to move your body to get these shots, so don’t ever hesitate to move around.

To illustrate, here are some examples:

Let me know if you like getting tips like these.  Happy shooting!

Now on to work!

-Jillian

Photography 101: The rule of Thirds

I’d like to share a tip that can help you take better pictures.  It’s called “the rule of thirds”.  Generally, following this rule gives your photos a more complete composition.   Often, amateur photographers will try to bulls-eye their subject into the very center of the frame.  This may be okay sometimes, but it is usually best to visualize three vertical and three horizontal segments.  Like this:

You should try to get your focal point to hit at least one of those lines.  Hitting an intersection (where the arrow is) is even better.

Here are some examples:

I was reminded of the awesome benefit of following this rule the other day when editing the last of Brittany and TJ’s pictures.  I had this picture to start with.  Nothing special about it really.  While I liked it okay, it was bulls-eyed and boring.

I almost closed this one up and moved on.  However, I decided to experiment with the cropping.  Knowing that I wanted the ring to be the focal point I just tried to blow up the picture until it hit an intersection.  What I got was a picture I am so in love with!

And all I had to do to make this picture go from meh to YEAH was crop!